The term “outbreak” has the same definition, though experts often use this term when the geographic area is smaller.Įxamples of epidemics or outbreaks would be the Zika virus in 2016 on the continents of Africa, the Americas, Southeast Asia, and the Western Pacific, according to the WHO, and the Ebola virus in West Africa.įatality rate Also called fatality risk, this is the percentage of people who die from a disease compared with the total number of people who were diagnosed with the disease in a certain time frame. An epidemic is a sudden increase in the number of cases of a disease - above what would normally be expected. An epidemic occurs when a disease rapidly spreads to a large number of people within a community, population, or region. The bumps can appear on the toes or the hands and feel itchy, burning, and painful.Īlthough COVID toes have been observed in many patients with the coronavirus, they are much less common than typical COVID-19 symptoms such as cough, shortness of breath, and fever.Įpidemic COVID-19 was declared an epidemic before it was a pandemic. It isn’t uncommon for people battling a viral infection such as COVID-19 to have a rash or blotchy areas on their body COVID toes can be one manifestation of that. RELATED: Can a Pulse Oximeter Save Your Life if You Have COVID-19?ĬOVID t oes Red or purple bumps may appear on the toes of some people who contract COVID-19, known as COVID toes. It’s possible to have advanced pneumonia without experiencing difficulty breathing, a condition called “silent hypoxia.” Hypoxemia can cause organs to malfunction, and in severe cases can interfere with brain or heart function. Ultimately this causes hypoxemia (low blood oxygen levels). RELATED: Everything You Need to Know About CoronavirusĬOVID pneumonia A complication of COVID-19 infection, this is a lung infection in which inflammation causes air sacs in the lungs to fill with fluid or pus. Symptoms of COVID-19 include fever, cough, and shortness of breath, though the majority of people who become infected have only mild symptoms. COVID-19 is part of a family of coronavirus diseases that include the common cold, SARS, and MERS.ĬOVID-19 was first reported at the end of 2019 in Wuhan, China, and the first confirmed case in the United States was on January 2, 2020, in Washington state. Using containment strategies in conjunction with other measures like physical distancing can help limit the number of cases of a disease, especially if the actions are taken soon after the outbreak is recognized.ĬOVID-19 COVID-19, also called coronavirus disease 2019, is the respiratory disease caused by SARS-CoV-2, the technical name for the new coronavirus. It helps officials track the spread of the virus or disease within a community and then uses isolation or quarantines to keep those infected individuals from spreading the disease to other people. Currently, the best way to prevent community spread is by avoiding crowds, staying home as much as possible, and staying at least six feet apart from other people.Ĭontainment Containment strategies are used at the beginning of an outbreak.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has stated that the assumption of immunity won't be proved until researchers are able to study people who have contracted and recovered from the virus for longer periods.Ĭommunity spread Community spread means people have been infected with the coronavirus in an area, says the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), including some who don’t know how or where they became infected.Ĭommunity spread is hard to contain, particularly because experts believe that many people with the coronavirus can be asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic but can still infect others.
Research is ongoing about whether people with coronavirus antibodies have any protection against getting COVID-19 again, at least for a certain amount of time, as has been the case with other viral illnesses. Antibodies are unique to a particular pathogen when a person has antibodies for the infection caused by the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, called SARS-CoV-2, it means that the person has been exposed to the virus and the body has mounted an immune response. If reading updates about COVID-19 often has you searching for an (online!) dictionary, here’s a quick rundown of all the most common terms and what they mean in relation to the virus.Īntibodies An antibody is a blood protein that the immune system makes as a response to an invader (pathogen), such as a virus. It's critical to understand what the experts recommend and why so that we can all follow guidelines to keep us and everyone around us safe. Since it was first identified at the end of 2019, the novel coronavirus has brought about a whole new way of life for most of us, and with that, a new vocabulary.